Chapter 12

12

" M y lord!" Randolph appeared in the doorway of Bastian's study, gasping and red-faced. One of his hands was clutching his chest.

"What?" Bastian jumped to his feet in an instant and ran to meet his butler.

"It's Miss Seyton. She's headed for the north tower. I tried to stop her, but she was too strong. She was muttering about shadows."

The north tower? What was Jane doing? She could get hurt up there. The stairs were mostly rotted wood that hadn't been replaced or repaired in a century. He'd kept it locked up until last week to keep any workmen from getting hurt.

"Damn!" he bellowed and took off running, leaving Randolph behind.

She was talking about shadows? His grandmother's warning echoed in his head. "Beware the shadows…" His boots slapped the stone stairs as he reached the doorway to the north tower. It was wide open, the weathered wood covered in cobwebs on one side as he sprinted past. Gripping the edges of the narrow stone wall, he prayed the creaking steps wouldn't collapse beneath him.

"Jane!"

Two more flights. He couldn't get his feet to move fast enough. When he passed through the doorway at the top of the stairs, he slid to a halt.

She was a few feet away, standing between the gray stone turrets on the ledge. Her arms were open and her head tilted back. Her arms suddenly dropped to her sides, and his breath hitched when she looked over her shoulder at him.

"Jane…get down from the ledge." He tried to keep his voice smooth and calm. " Please ." He crept toward her, hoping it wouldn't catch her off guard and make her fall. As he got closer, his heart pounded in his chest as he saw her eyes.

They were red and glowing like the flames of a distant fire.

"She's coming." Jane's voice seemed merged with another woman's voice.

"Who?" He was so close, if she just stepped off the ledge toward him, he could catch her.

"The heart of evil." That same eerie, dual voice rippled over his skin with an almost tangible touch. She started to lean away from him when the wind rose up enough to push her off the ledge. He shouted and dove for her.

His fingers dug into her sweater, snagging her just in time. With a violent tug, he brought her flying back into him. They stumbled, and he grunted as they slammed hard into the floor. She was limp in his arms, her eyes closed and breathing shallow. For a few precious seconds, he fought to regain his breath. He cupped her face and lifted it up so he could see her. She blinked a few times, her eyes a little glassy.

"Are you all right, Jane?" He held her tight, afraid to lose her after what he'd just witnessed. She had nearly fallen to her death. The significance of that wasn't lost on him. Little tremors shook him, and he hoped she couldn't feel his hands shaking.

"Bastian, why are we on the roof?" She glanced about, eyes wide, lips trembling.

"You came up here on your own. Randolph saw you and said you were muttering about shadows. He came and fetched me straightaway. I got here just in time to catch you before you fell."

Before Jane could respond, Randolph appeared in the open stairwell doorway.

"My lord!" His wheezing breaths announced he'd run the entire way.

"She's fine. I've got her."

The old butler sagged with relief. "Thank heavens."

"Bastian, I was dreaming, I think. I was Isabelle, and I was fleeing the castle and heading toward the cliffs." She licked her lips nervously. "Something was urging me to run. I didn't have any control." The last few words that left her mouth wavered as she fought off emotions.

"Easy love, it's over now." He wanted to ease her fears and never feel her heart beating so frantically against his again, unless it was from wild lovemaking.

"Is it really? What if this keeps happening until I eventually jump?"

Bastian shook his head. "I won't let that happen. If I have to keep you with me every second of the day to protect you, I will." His voice was a low growl. He prayed that she would believe him.

"You can't promise that," she argued.

"I can." He lifted her away from him so he could sit up.

"But you said you had to stay away from me to keep me safe."

He exhaled a slow breath. "Apparently I was wrong. You're a target whether I'm near you or not. I can't afford to let anything happen to you. You should leave now. Go back home to Charleston and never look back." He meant it. Part of him wanted to have an excuse to be near her but he hated that the cost was her life being in danger, more so than he'd ever imagined. It wasn't just the fear of an accident like his father's death. There was more to this, something far more sinister and otherworldly. How could he even begin to protect her against something like that?

Her fear-tinged stare roamed over the turrets, then back to Bastian. "I'm not leaving. I think Isabelle was murdered. Something was chasing and pushed her off the cliff. We have to find out what, or who, it was."

"Then we'll need to find Richard's journal." If there was an answer that hadn't been erased by the passage of time, that journal might hold the key to the mystery. He caught Jane's hands and they both stood.

"Why don't you both rest before dinner?" Randolph suggested.

After the terror of seeing Jane almost die, Bastian had to admit, rest seemed like a good idea. His own heart was still pounding violently.

The three of them began the long descent from the north tower. When they arrived at Jane's room, she hesitated, her gaze shifting as she studied the room as though she expected to be attacked.

"I'm right across the hall if you need me. I'll watch over you and wake you when it's time for dinner."

She looked so uneasy that it made an invisible fist crush his heart. He curled his hands around her waist and brought her close for a lingering, comforting kiss.

"I'll be here."

"Thank you," she murmured and drew back. She slid into her room and closed the door.

Bastian remained there a few minutes longer, debating whether he should stay with her or return to his own room. Surely she would be fine, she was only a few feet away if she needed him. He turned his back on her and entered his room.

He didn't jump this time when he saw Richard's journal lying open on his bed. He didn't dwell on it or how it got there. There was little point in questioning the diary's ability to appear and disappear at will. Instead, he focused on the answers he and Jane needed. If Isabelle had been murdered, it changed everything.

There was no date at the top of the journal, and it was much later than the other entries Richard had written.

It began with nightmares . For the last three nights, Isabelle has woken me and Edward with her guttural screams. Each time I did my best to comfort her, but I know it is not enough. Her eyes are haunted and ringed with purple bruises from lack of sleep. She is terrified to close her eyes. Before the screaming starts, she whispers about shadows and "that creature" which she cannot cast out. After each incident, I questioned her, but she cannot recall what she's dreamed.

Samuel, my old gardener has taken to following her about whenever she goes out on the grounds. I thanked him. He will watch over her when I cannot. Isabelle's condition frightens me. There is nothing so terrifying in the world than to watch an invisible monster attack someone you love. How do I slay her dragon if I cannot see it? I am afraid she is close to breaking…

The lines on the page scrawled off as though the writer had been interrupted. Bastian fingered the pages of the journal, wondering what had made Richard stop writing. One thing was clear.

The past was repeating itself. Whatever dark force that held Stormclyffe in thrall had fixated on Jane like it had Isabelle. Richard's words carved themselves into his chest.

How do I slay her dragon if I cannot see it?

What was the dragon? A mental condition created by stress and influenced by Isabelle's own madness, or was the answer something far more sinister and otherworldly? He didn't want to acknowledge that, but too much had happened for him to deny something beyond his understanding was happening in his home. Seeing Jane standing on the edge of the turrets had forced him to acknowledge that something dark lived within his home and wanted to hurt him and those he cared about.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he was oddly relieved to see his mother's number. He hadn't spoken to her in weeks.

"Bastian?" His mother's voice came through the phone clearly.

"Mother, how are you?" he asked.

"Fine, fine. How are the renovations coming?" Her question was ordinary, but he detected a strain to her tone he hadn't heard before.

"Mother, what is it?" The fine hairs on the back of his neck lifted from an invisible wind.

"I was taking a nap this afternoon and had a most peculiar dream. There was a woman with dark hair. You were holding her close and kissing her."

Normally he would have blanched at his mother dreaming of him in a romantic setting with a woman, but something about her voice still unsettled him.

"What else did you dream about?"

His mother's soft sigh made his chest tighten. "She's real isn't she? The woman? You care about her." That last part wasn't a question.

"I…do. Against all rationality, I care about her." Admitting it aloud felt strangely freeing and yet frightening. He couldn't take what he said back.

"Be careful, sweetheart."

"What is it?" he prompted.

"I saw this woman wreathed in darkness and consumed by shadows. She's in danger, Bastian. Watch over her. You need to get yourself and her away from that awful place." His mother's warning was an echo of his own instincts, but they were so close to solving the mystery of the place.

He had to stay. The compulsion to be at Stormclyffe overrode logic. He had to restore the castle, fix it. They had to mend what once was broken. There would be no rest, no safety until it was done. He knew this to be true deep within his bones. Neither he nor Jane could back out now, not until they saw this through.

"I will keep her safe, Mother." A flicker of nerves made him hesitate briefly. "Christmas is a few months away, I would like for you to meet her."

His mother was silent a long moment. "How long have you known her?"

This time Bastian laughed. "A handful of days." How could he explain it? The magnetic pull, the sense that he'd always known her. From the moment she'd turned around in the red drawing room with Isabelle's portrait behind her, he'd been struck by that startling likeness. Seeing her seemed to have roused him from a hundred years of enchanted sleep.

"Your father asked me to marry him three minutes after he met me." His mother's words cut into his thoughts.

"What? I didn't know that." Bastian smiled.

"The only reason I said yes was because of how he danced. He didn't say a word, just took me in his arms, and we danced. When the music was over, he got down on one knee in front of everyone and proposed. He said he would never find a partner as perfect as me, so he stopped looking."

He put a hand over his heart as his chest tightened. It never ceased to amaze him that grief which had long since been buried could resurface after just one beautiful memory of a lost loved one.

"If this Jane is your perfect partner, time stops. You don't have to think past that."

He didn't respond but instead said, "I'll see you at Christmas." Perfect partner? They'd danced around each other, and the chemistry was hot enough to burn, but he sensed she craved more, even as she feared it. Just like he did.

"I love you, dear. Please be careful. I can't lose you, too." The quiet despair in her tone made his eyes burn.

"You won't, Mother. This is my home. I am not going to let shadows of the past chase me away."

Jane couldn't sleep. Instead she sprawled on the bed, her laptop up and running as she researched ghosts. There were thousands of sites dedicated to hauntings and paranormal activity. Several spiritualists suggested that ghosts who suffered tragic events would repeat the event over and over again, like a broken record. Supposedly, if someone could get the spirit to break the cycle, then the spirit would be able to move on.

She stared into the distance, thinking back to when she had seen Isabelle on the cliffs and how she had been pulled off the ledge by thorny, black roots. The gardener had mentioned that she haunted the cliffs and been seen there many times. Maybe she reenacted her death over and over again, and this was the cycle Jane needed to break.

Closing her eyes, she let the memory of the cliffs come back. She had been Isabelle and felt what Isabelle had felt. The terror and despair and the crashing blackness on the rocks below. And then she'd woken up and found that she'd nearly jumped off the north tower.

A shiver slid along her spine. She could have died. Would have died if Bastian hadn't been there to save her…

A rapping sound on her door dragged her back from the darkness of her thoughts.

Bastian's voice was quiet, gentle, on the other side of Jane's door. "Are you ready for dinner?"

"Hang on," she called out and dashed to the bathroom.

With a quick check in the mirror to make sure her jeans and sweater looked good, she slid her feet into her ballet flats and took a deep breath.

She opened the door. "Ready."

He leaned lazily against the wall next to her room, one shoulder propping him up, legs crossed at the ankles. He straightened, pulled back the sleeve of his black sweater and examined his Cartier wristwatch.

"We have time for dinner and the ballroom." His lips quirking into a ghost of a smile.

"Ballroom?" she asked. Was he planning to take her into town tonight for dancing? The idea had a fair amount of appeal, but she wasn't the best dancer. Slow dancing was the extent of her talents.

He picked up on her nervousness. "Don't tell me you don't want to see it. We missed it on your official tour. I thought all Americans loved their tours."

She groaned and joined him in the hall. "You'll never let me live this down, will you?"

He had the audacity to flash a cheeky grin. "We Brits have long memories. To me, you're still a colonist."

"Jesus, at this rate, we might reach independence from you people when I'm dead."

"Perhaps, if you're lucky." He slid an arm around her waist in a gesture so casual that it felt like he'd done it for years. His fingers curled possessively, and she warmed inside at the intimacy it created. It was almost like he was flirting with her…but surely not. Even though he said he believed her about her dreams now, men like Bastian and women like her never got together. A girl could dream though…

I should pull away. Can't let him get to me, but he's so damned sexy and sweet. The barriers against her heart were like splinters in stone, and the desire to be with him flowed easily like water through the fractures he'd created. He was breaking into her heart, and she was having trouble keeping him out.

He even pulled her chair back for her when they arrived at the dining room. Randolph appeared, accompanied by a plump woman in a flour-covered apron—probably the cook, Mrs. Beechum, who brought their dinner and left.

"Where are they going?" Jane asked after Randolph and the cook disappeared out a small side door.

Bastian sipped his Chianti before replying. "Probably back to Weymouth tonight. He has a few things he wishes to do in town and will return tomorrow. I have been running this place on a skeleton crew for the last couple of months until things settle down. A lot of the workers weren't comfortable with all of the accidents and setbacks on the renovations. Most of them only agreed to work during the day and return to the town before nightfall."

There was no need to clarify what "things" he meant. Ghosts.

"You mean it's just you and me? Alone?" She gulped down her wine.

He chuckled, a playful and wicked gleam in his eyes. "Frightened of being alone with me, Jane? Afraid I'll spread you out on this table and feast on you, that I'll ravish you senseless?" His words came out a silken promise of things to come.

The heat in his eyes reminded her of chocolate, and she was sucked into the image he painted. Her lying on the table, dishes broken on the ground from where he had shoved them away to get to her. His hands ripping at her clothes, desperate to taste her bare flesh…

Wetness pooled between her legs, and she clenched her thighs together, thankful he couldn't see through the table. She bit her bottom lip and looked away, desperate to hide the desire in her eyes. If he ever found out how much she wanted him, wanted what his kisses promised, she would be in trouble.

"Jane, I was only teasing." He pushed back his chair and stood.

"I'm fine, really. I think I'm just on edge, that's all."

She took a bite of her roasted chicken.

He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She looked over her shoulder, surprised at how vulnerable she felt in that moment.

Yet there was something impossibly arousing to have him behind her when she was defenseless. He dug his long, elegant fingers into her muscles, rubbing the tension away. A moan slipped from her, and her head fell back against the chair.

He looked down at her, his gaze filled with a scorching heat that burned her from the inside. She'd never thought she could drown in a man's eyes, but staring up at him, she finally understood. His black pupils dilated rapidly, absorbing her as they absorbed the light in the room. Nothing existed outside of him, nothing mattered beyond the promise of dark delights and carnal pleasures that were reflected in his predatory stare. She surrendered to that gaze, to him.

He continued to massage her, all of that strength and power he possessed targeted at making her relax. She blinked. Thoughts like that sure could go straight to a girl's head, make her want to whimper, beg, and surrender to anything he might demand. She'd never been the submissive type, but a man who could dominate her sensually set her blood on fire.

"Why the blush?" he asked, his voice amused. His hand settled on her throat, his fingers curling around it. He didn't squeeze, but the grip was possessive. She got even wetter, her thighs, shaking from how tight they were smashed together.

"It's a little warm in here." Her tongue was thick as molasses. She was having trouble concentrating on anything besides the memory of his full lips, how they kissed with such natural ease. How good it felt to be under his control, consumed by his need for her.

"Finish your dinner. You'll feel better with a full stomach." He trailed his fingertips along the nape of her neck, toying with her hair, pulling it to one side so he could caress the knotted muscles on either side of her neck before he returned to his seat.

She ate rapidly, not really hungry, thankful for the distraction. Anything to get her mind off Bastian and the new power he seemed to have over her.

He cleaned his plate first and then sat back, watching her.

"What is the one thing you miss most about your home?" he asked.

She set her fork down and contemplated that. The answer came fairly easily.

"When I was ten, my dad took us out on his sailboat on the ocean. He had this old brass bell. That morning fog drifted across the lake, and my dad rang the bell to warn other boats we were nearby. I loved the sound of that bell. When my father sold that boat, he removed the bell, made a wind chime out of it, and hung it on a window outside my room." Before she even realized it, she was smiling, but her chest was tight as she realized how much she missed home and that sound.

She raised her gaze to his face. "There's nothing more wonderful than hearing the clanging early in the morning as a breeze moves through the trees." A blush heated her face as she realized she was picturing him in bed next to her, listening to the bell chime, while their bodies were wrapped around each other.

To distract herself, she turned the question back to him. "What about you? Do you miss something back in London?"

He played with the stem of his wineglass, watching the way the candlelight glinted off the crystal. "I miss…" He hesitated, cleared his throat and then continued. "I miss feeling like I have a place of my own. London was never my home, even though it's the only place I've ever known. This," he gestured to the beautiful dining room around them, which was adorned with portraits of his ancestors, "this is my home. I feel it in my blood and in my bones. I belong here, and nothing will make me leave. That's why I have to restore this place. I will not let anything take my home away from me."

She heard the silent vow behind that. Ghosts or no ghosts, he wouldn't abandon Stormclyffe to them. It was his home, and he was going to fight for it.

Neither of them spoke after that, and she hastily finished her dinner. He got up first and was at her side, hand outstretched.

"Come with me."